Court upholds Obama border-state gun-sale reporting

5/31/13 10:36 AM EDT

A federal appeals court has upheld efforts by President Barack Obama's administration to crack down on gun trafficking into Mexico by requiring gun dealers in the four southern border states to report to the federal government all sales of multiple semi-automatic rifles with certain features.

In a unanimous ruling Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives did not run afoul of a Congressional ban on a national gun registry when it created the border-state reporting requirement in 2011.

"The GCA [Gun Control Act of 1968] unambiguously authorizes the demand letter," Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote, joined by Judges Judith Rogers and Harry Edwards. "A national firearms registry is a large-scale collection of records...Because ATF sent the demand letter to only seven percent of [federal firearms licensees] nationwide and required information on only a small number of transactions, the July 2011 demand letter does not come close to creating a 'national firearms registry.'"

The judges ruled on a challenge brought by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and supported by the National Rifle Association.

The D.C. Circuit opinion, posted here, rejected arguments that gathering the data would be too burdensome for firearms dealers.

"Searching records for multiple sales of a particular type of firearm to the same customer...is nothing new for FFLs. Since 1975, an FFL who sells 'two or more pistols or revolvers [to the same person] at one time, or during any five consecutive business days' has been required to submit a report to ATF similar to the one at issue," Henderson wrote. "The fact that an FFL chooses to keep his records in alphabetical or numerical order does not mean that the FFL can complain if his choice may not always be the least burdensome. Moreover, there is nothing preventing an FFL from maintaining records in a less burdensome (in this case, chronological) manner."

Henderson was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, Rogers by President Bill Clinton, and Edwards by President Jimmy Carter.